1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tonality correction method and more particularly, relates to a method for correcting the tonality of a color image in a color image recorder, in which three kinds of rays of light which are different from each other in wavelength are irradiated upon a chromatically photosensitive material having a spectral sensitivity to at least the range of visible light, to control the coloring in yellow, magenta and cyan to record the tonality-corrected color image on the chromatically photosensitive material.
2. Background Art
In one available method, in order to correct the tonality of a color image in a color image making device, the shades of yellow, magenta and cyan in coloring are observed by eyesight upon the recorded color image. At that time, the quantity of exposure to light is adjusted by a filter, for example, to compensate for any shortage or imbalance in coloring. It there is a shortage in the yellow coloring of the recorded color image, for example, a filter is disposed on an optical axis to promote the yellow coloring by rays of light to which a photosensitive material is exposed, i.e., to irradiate more rays of yellow light upon the photosensitive material. After that, image recording is performed again, and a new recorded image is observed by eyesight to judge the correction of the tonality. Such tonality correction is performed again if necessary.
The above approach is difficult, in that, the relationship in coloring among three basic colors, such as yellow, magenta and cyan, or four basic colors such as yellow, magenta, cyan and black, needs to be comprehended or grasped in order to determine the corrected quantity of the tonality through the observation of the recorded color image. In addition, it is difficult to make the spectral characteristics of the colors and that of a tonality correction means (such as a tonality correction filter) coincide with each other. For these reasons, the above approach is disadvantageous as special knowledge and experience are necessary to determine the quantity of the correction of the tonality by the tonality correction means. Therefore, there is a problem in that it is virtually impossible to easily correct the tonality.